Tonight, I attended a singles group event. I'd arranged for my son to spend the night with my cousins so I could go. I spent more than an hour dressing and primping. I was quietly optimistic.

I was home within two hours, sadder than before I had left. As I walked in, I was asked to put on a name tag and take a ticket for a free drink. The organizer hands me a yellow sheet with about 16 cubed drawings. All of these represent the name of a Christmas carol. We are to sit down and figure out what they are. "And if you can't get it, ask someone cute to help you," she says, winking at me.

I choose a table that looks safe. A smiling woman, my age or older, and two men, neither of whom looks excited to be there.

We talk out each drawing. The three kings standing under huge plants must be "We Three Kings." The knight with holes in his armor: "O Holy Night." Giant feet trudging through a snowy scene: "Walking in a Winter Wonderland."

"It feels like we're in third grade, doesn't it?" the organizer calls out, beaming at us.

Yes, it does. Exactly.

After that, we're asked to count off by threes. The ones, twos and threes all gather in separate circles. The organizer asks us to pass around a present that has been wrapped in several layers. As we pass it, we are to introduce ourselves and tell our most romantic Christmas story. I can't think of one, and I pass the gift quickly to my left. Neither can most of the people there; some instead tell stories about other gifts, other times, with lovers, husbands and girlfriends who are no longer part of their lives. I can scarcely imagine a crueler question to put to a group of singles.

I talk afterward with a blonde woman, Kristie, who's affixed her name tag to the bare skin showing above her low-cut dress. She is funny, in a sarcastic, sad way. "I've signed up for lots of things with this group in the next few weeks," she says. "I have to to convince my married friends they're right. They keep telling me how great it must be to be single during the holidays. Christmas, oh yeah. When I wake up and think, 'Another one alone,' and decide I'm not going to get out of my pajamas all day. And New Year's Eve - there's another one."

Her words are not amusing, but her demeanor is. The tone of her voice, her smile as she relates this, the timing of the words. She tells me she's hiding from one of the guys who was in our group - the three's. "We had a date last week," she said. "He told me to meet him at 5:30 and all we did was split an appetizer. Was I wrong to expect dinner?"

He finds her and my presence among them is immediately awkward. I wait until there's a point in the conversation in which I can gracefully make an exit.

The organizer sees me reaching for my coat. She's passing out red tickets. "Wait," she says, "you'll want to stay for the drawing. We've got some great prizes!"

I take the ticket with a smile and a thank you, wait until she's passed and slip out the door. I wonder what I did, what any of those people did, to bring us to this place. I start the car and aim it homeward. The tears, of which I am so incredibly weary, fall.